Bryan Ferry on the anthem that captures “the feeling of love”
For someone who came up in the heyday of glam rock, Bryan Ferry was a throwback. Despite the arty kids in leotards surrounding him, pouting through neon makeup and looking like they sprung straight out of a Flash Gordon serial, Ferry’s look, attitude and even his voice was a tribute to the matinee idols of the 1930s and 40s.
He seemed totally out of place on stage at the Marquee Club with Brian Eno posing next to him and seemed much more like the kind of guy to croon through tender love songs in a smoky jazz bar. So, when NPR’s Bob Bollen sat down with Ferry in 2013, he did so with one goal in mind. To get the great man’s favourite love songs out into the open. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, natch.
There’s a refreshing openness to all of Ferry’s picks. He doesn’t go for anything edgy or against the grain. No songs about the heartbreak that comes from love, or swearing it off all together, he picks a handful of jazz and soul classics that are honestly and unabashedly about how amazing it is to find a pure connection in this flawed world.
With a list that covers Otis Redding, Aaron Neville and his old band Roxy Music, Ferry proves exactly the right person to ask for a list of love songs. He talks through how influenced and inspired he was by them in his typical, suavely articulate style, humbly acknowledging that he is the artist to talk about war or “paying the bills”, as he puts it, because he’s just more interested in topics that are, in his words “more intimate”.
There is one track on the list that stands out to him above all others, which is saying a hell of a lot considering one of those tracks is The Shirelle’s still phenomenal ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow’. This track is by one of the great soul singers of his time, whose work Ferry actually covered in the form of his deathless ‘Take Me To The River’. It’s not a patch on Talking Heads’ version, but then, few things are.
The artist is Al Green, and the song is ‘Let’s Stay Together’, one of the few songs that strikes the perfect balance between being joyously lovestruck and hornier than a rutting rhino, ‘Let’s Stay Together’ is the perfect fit for the list, and well worth the praise that Ferry gives it. Paying particular notice to the reverend of soul’s “love voice” for his particular affinity for romantic songs.
Even taking into account the tragic story of Green’s love life after the song, for all the strife that passion can give you, it can also give artists moments of transcendent beauty, a rare capturing of “the feeling of love”. Moments that Ferry has sought to embody with his phenomenal skill as a cover artist. For all of Ferry’s skill as a songwriter, this is perhaps the thing he has most in common with his matinee idol forebears.
Most of the list are songs that he has covered and interpreted in such a meaningful way. Taking on songs like Bob Dylan’s ‘Make You Feel My Love’ is no mean feat, but as Adele also proved, when you’ve got a voice that can carry so much meaning, there’s little you can’t do.
